Systems for tracking and locating valuable items have been an area of interest to the industry for minimizing financial loss caused to their customers and to public at large. Such systems may include navigational aids and tracking devices. An alternate technique used for tracking items has been through the use of Global Positioning System (GPS) information. The GPS system requires GPS receivers to be mounted on the item for receiving GPS signals from the overhead satellites. The installation of a GPS receiver on each item to be tracked tends to increase the overhead cost of operation. Installation of a GPS receiver also increases the overall size of the item. Further, installation of a GPS receiver would lead to a continuous monitoring of the location of the item, which could be undesirable for a user of the item. The user might need an item to be tracked only in certain situations such as a theft or loss of the item. During normal operations the user might not desire the tracking service. Hence there is a need for a system that can track items when required by the user of the item in a cost-effective manner.
Techniques known in the art have employed the use of a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag coupled with an item to be tracked and an RFID reader capable of communicating with the RFID tag. However a major limitation of the RFID reader is the need for close proximity with the item to be tracked. As a result, multiple installations of RFID readers are required for effectively tracking the item, which may result in additional infrastructure cost. Further as cost of an RFID reader is high, the overall cost of installation of the system employing RFID readers for tracking the item increases.
Hence there is a need for a system that can track the item on a request of the user rather than tracking the item continuously. Further there is a need for a cost-effective solution that utilizes existing infrastructure and minimizes the use of additional hardware. The present disclosure proposes a cost-effective solution where the existing cellular network infrastructure is used for tracking items.